Radio host Howard Stern said Tuesday that the “misogynistic, sexist” comments Donald Trump made during his frequent appearances on Stern’s show represented a core part of the Republican nominee’s personality.

“None of this was hidden,” the Sirius radio host said in comments first flagged by CNN. “This is who Trump is. He was always bombastic. He always rated women. He always talked in a misogynistic, sexist kind of way, but he did it sort of proudly and out in the open; and he still won the Republican primary. In one sense, the fact that we do an interview and people’s personalities come out, I’m very proud of that.”

While Stern has declined to unfairly replay Trump’s past derogatory comments in a “betrayal” of the real estate mogul’s willingness to come on his show, he insisted that what listeners heard on his radio program was the real Donald Trump.

“CNN, NBC, Fox, they have to turn to our tapes because it’s a real conversation,” he added later, nodding at recently dug up interviews in which Trump rates women on a scale of 1-10 and gives Stern approval to call his daughter a “piece of ass.”

After the leaked “Access Hollywood” tape showed the Republican nominee boasting about grabbing women without their consent, Trump’s defenders said the comments were “locker room talk” that did not represent him as a person.

“Anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am,” Trump said in an apology video.

His wife Melania, daughter Ivanka, and other surrogates made the same case about Trump, who was 59 years old when the tape was recorded.

Yet according to Stern, who built his radio career making lewd observations about women, his comments represented more than “locker room talk.”

“I have never been in the room when someone has said, ‘Grab them by the pussy,” he said earlier in October. “No one’s ever advocated going that step where you get a little bit, ‘Hey I’m going to invade someone’s space.'”

Though Stern said Trump has always been “very friendly” to him, he is a longtime supporter of Hillary Clinton.